An interesting analogy that comes to mind is the electronic technologies that have tried to supplant silicon. I remember, perhaps as long as 40 years ago, reading that gallium arsenide could make faster transistors than silicon, and that we would soon have GaAs computers. Similar for other things like optical computing.

But every time GaAs cleared another hurdle, silicon also moved forward, kind of like the tortoise and the hare. There are certainly uses for GaAs, such as microwave amplifiers, but no GaAs computers yet that I'm aware of.